Category: Travel

Moving abroad is a completely life-changing experience, and something most keen travelers think about at least a few times throughout their life. While vacations are certainly enjoyable, they never give you enough time to explore and truly appreciate where you are. Unfortunately, planning such as huge undertaking is much more complicated and costly than your average break away. There are so many things that must be done, and, if you forget even one of them, it could spell disaster. With that in mind, here are ten important things you must do before moving.

Adjusting to a new home is never easy, but it will be so much harder if the place is completely unknown to you. As soon as you know where you’re moving to, therefore, you should start reading about it. Completely immerse yourself in information, learning about the language, job market, culture, climate, and laws. You should also research the cost of living, as well as schools if you have children. The more knowledge you have the better prepared you will be.

Take A Mini Break

As much information is online, it’s impossible to truly get to know a place unless you go there. While plenty of people move abroad just fine without visiting the country, it is better to plan a short break first. This would give you some idea of what would be in store if you were to move there. If you can’t go on vacation before moving, then speak to others who have visited the country, or better yet, the area. You don’t want to find out you don’t like it too late, after all.

Check The Visa Requirements

Before you get too excited about moving, you must ensure that you can legally live in the country that you’ve chosen. In most cases, you’ll have to apply for a visa to live long-term and work abroad. Whatever you do, you can’t leave it until the last minute to apply for this document. It can sometimes take weeks or even months for an application to be approved, which simply might be too late. You must check your passport also and renew it beforehand if it’s about to expire.

Save Up The Money

The process of moving house is far from cheap, but you can guarantee that moving abroad will be a lot more costly. You’ll need to book flights, apply for visas and passports, and might also need to pay for accommodation, as well as cover the cost of shipping your belongings overseas. You’ll also need some money spare in case of unexpected expenses. With that in mind, you should start saving up as soon as you can. Cutting costs around the house will make this easier.

Ask For Professional Help

There are some tasks that you can easily do alone. Moving abroad, however, is not one of them. Because of this, you will have to find international removalists to handle the process for you. They can pack and unpack your belongings, store them until you need them, and then take them where they need to go. Rather than choose the first moving company you find, you should research a few and pick the best one. Ensure you book with them early for the best price.

Once you know for sure that you’re moving away, you will need to let your children know. After all, the move affects them just as much as it does you. Some parents put off this talk until just before moving day in an attempt to spare their kids any unnecessary stress. However, dropping a change as huge as this one on them last minute isn’t going to do them any good. You should tell them as soon as you can and be prepared to answer any questions that they might have.

Sort Out Your Accounts

While you will still be able to use some of your accounts abroad, a lot of them you will have to cancel. Most people have many accounts for different services, including banks, credit cards, gyms, phones, and other utilities. For this reason, you should start the process of closing them quite early. Around a month before you leave should be plenty of time. For the account that you intend to keep open, you must contact the companies and let them know of your plans to move.

Visit The Doctor’s Office

Getting sick is never fun, but many of the illnesses found abroad can be particularly troublesome. This is why many countries won’t allow you in unless you have certain vaccinations and medications. A few months before you leave, therefore, you should visit the doctor’s office and inform them of your moving plans. While you’re there, they can give you any medicines that you might need, as well as conduct a physical to make sure that you’re in good health.

Clear Out The House

You should never move house with all of your belongings, but this is especially true when moving abroad. The more things that you decide to take, the more stressful the move will be, and the more that you’ll have to spend. For this reason, you should start clearing out your home as early as you can. You can sell some of the things that you don’t need for a little extra cash and donate, recycle, or throw away the rest. The less stuff you take with you, the easier moving will be.

The hardest part about moving somewhere new is having to leave many of those you love behind. Since it’s difficult to know when you’ll next see your friends and family, you should try to spend as much time with them as you can before you leave. Although you will be pretty busy with the move, you’ll regret it if you don’t. You might also want to throw a going away party. This gives you an opportunity to see everyone you love in one room one the last time for a while.

Moving abroad is rewarding, but it requires a lot of work. Although it won’t be easy, following the advice above can make the process a little more straightforward.

Starting a family is always something special. But all too often, you’ll find that women tend to let a piece of themselves go. While it’s always great to be a dedicated and committed parent, you don’t have to give up everything about you and your own personality in order to do it. Instead, when you’re strong, you still take care of yourself and your needs, and you allow your life to influence your children’s’ upbringing, you’ll be doing them the world of good. This is particularly the case when travel is a huge part of your life. Just because you have a family, it doesn’t mean that you should stop traveling or reduce the trips you take. As long as you have a happy family life and the perfect balance, you can keep it up. So let’s take a look at how you can bring more travel back into your family life.

Make A Plan For The Year

Up first, you need to plan. While it’s never all that realistic to plan for everything that you’re going to do for the year, month by month, you do need to have some goals. This is why creating a travel bucket list for both the year and the rest of your life can help. When you know where you want to go, what you want to see, and the experiences that you want to have, you can then work on bringing that into your life. Then, you just need to book the trips as and when the opportunity arises.

But don’t just settle. Make sure that you decide to head to new places. Maybe your first year should be all about the new. Head to places that you’ve never been to before. This will broaden the experience you all have and introduce your children to new cultures. So be sure to ban places you’ve already been for the time being.

Say Yes

If you ever get the opportunity to travel, and this applies to anyone in the family, say yes! Open yourselves up to exciting opportunities. Whether that’s school trips to Africa for them or a work trip overseas for you, do it. When you all get to experience different things and head to different places, you’re bringing more travel into your lives effortlessly.

Next, you should definitely think about making arrangements to see your family and friends that live across the country or overseas. When you make plans, you’re letting yourselves travel more. And it’s always fun to catch up with people that you’ve have seen in a long time too.

Start A Collection

Finally, you’re going to want to start yourself a bit of a souvenirs collection. When you purchase things from your travels to add to your home, not only are you making memories, you’re encouraging yourself to travel to new places. With the aim of building them up and bringing different pieces in from different countries, you’ll easily be able to open yourselves up to travel on a regular basis.